Unravelling the black economy will not be easy

Despite allegations to the contrary, print media does not print just bad news.

I’m sure many of us were pleasantly surprised to read in Tuesday’s Irish Examiner that the black or shadow economy was not as bad as many of us thought. A lot of us would have thought it was rampant, but that is not the case, or at least, it’s not as bad as we thought it was.

Apparently, we have the sixth lowest rate of shadow activity in Europe. It would appear, surprisingly, that we are law-abiding, tax compliant citizens. Now that’s good news and bad news.